Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said today he believed the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 that crashed off Lebanon on Monday was operated by his airline until April last year.

He said Ryanair sold the plane in April 2009, without specifying the buyer.

"I think they had it in maintenance, they did some work on it, between April and May. I think they leased it to Ethiopian in September, and something happened to it. We are not sure yet, but it may have been that aircraft that was involved in the accident yesterday".

"What happened we don't know. It's a bit like you selling your car and 11 months later the new person driving it has a crash. It had nothing to do with us," the Irish airline's CEO told Reuters after a news conference in Rome.

Ethiopian Airlines says the eight-year-old plane was leased from a division of US financing company CIT Group and had its last routine maintenance on December 25.

The plane crashed into the sea with 90 people on board minutes after taking off from Beirut in stormy weather early on Monday and there were no reports of survivors.

Ethiopian Airlines said the Boeing 737-800, a recent version of Boeing's best-selling model, left the US factory in 2002. The airline said it leased the aircraft in September 2009 from CIT Aerospace, part of CIT Group.

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